The Lord of Chaos laughs. The trees shake and drop ripe fruit on our heads. Birds scream and swoop. We shield our eyes, but they peck at the fingers. There are, we are told, technical problems. The Lord of Chaos laughs again. Snakes writhe beneath us, twist around our ankles. There are yet more insects. They thicken the air, crawl up our legs, infest our undergarments. We are told that there are other people, far away voting on Facebook, and they must be counted. We count them. Then learn they have also posted on the site. And we trudge on, exhausted, through the shadows. But some have been left behind, we learn. They need more time. More time among the briars and thorns and oozing swamps.

Something sticks in our side. A spear? A thorn? Another complaint from a Ewan Morrison supporter? The Lord Of Chaos roars. The sound is deep in the dark. There is a crash. Something has broken. There is howling. That's me. We move into the final day – a few hours after the final day was already supposed to have finished. The monkeys screech. We fall. We start to run. Into the trees ...

... Suddenly, we stop. There is light ahead. We are in a clearing. We have our shortlist!

The observant will notice that this shortlist is slightly longer than convention dictates. Swift was nudged out of contention by the extra day that we had to add following on from all those computer problems. That seemed too much like hard luck. So he's on the list too.

And so, we are out of the woods, for a while. Our work for the next few weeks is clear. We must read, discuss and evaluate each book in turn. We'll go through them in alphabetical order, by author, meaning the delightfully named JW Irongmonger's The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder is up first.

This book, according to GeoffBlamire, "is not to be missed... It moves effortlessly between the life of a child in Kenya in the 1960s, a potted history of the Ponder family and glimpses into the mind of Max though snippets from 'The Catalogue'. The story is littered with a multitude of varied facts over a wide range of subjects. Some that I remember are about philosophies, Ugandan atrocities and astronomy, but there are many more. They are told in a manner that makes them interesting to read and gives you a willingness to try and remember them. At the end of every chapter you wonder what is coming next and are greedy for the next chapter."

Good news. While we have breathing space, it's also worth looking at the other six contenders.

AJ Kirby's Paint This Town Red is, says Marilyn Baron, "Jurassic Park meets Jaws... a descent into darkness and devilry. Limm Island is cut off from the rest of the world, delivering its 'own version of justice.' The multi-talented Kirby has created an outrageous cast of connected characters peppered with comic foibles. When a prehistoric panther, a winged beast and a Biblical invasion of flies 'pick off the townspeople as prey,' the curse that plagues the town threatens to destroy it. Oh, and there's also a great, white beached shark that makes Jaws seem like a minnow."

It sounds like a metaphor for this very prize.

Olwen Acts says Stephen May's Life! Death! Prizes! has "Way too much story for a conventional Booker novel. It's a warm-hearted coming of age story, but it's also much else. Things move and they move fast. Billy Smith is hormonal, skint, confused and obsessed with a computer game. He is, despie this, very appealing in the way that teenage boys are. He's also meant to be the guardian of his little brother Oscar. It's a truly hair-raising roller coaster ride that leaves you feeling somehow empty when you finish."

That too sounds like a description of the Not the Booker.

Fortunately, Ewan Morrison's Tales from the Mall doesn't. Instead it could, claims robotmaster, be "the first novel for the Culture of Metrics. Its combination of behavioural dioramas, historical investigation, economic analysis and imaginative extrapolation has invented a new form for itself, one well suited to portraying the retail driven, service oriented society that has grown under our feet in the without us quite realising it. Each chapter is a separate unit, reflecting the modularity of the mall itself, but it all adds up to a thoughtful examination of the denationalised space we all now inhabit."

I admit I had to google "culture of metrics", but when I did, I began to realise how interesting this book might be.

Ben Myers' Pig Iron reminded Connemara84 of "Shane Meadows' Dead Man's Shoes, the tales of Bartley Gorman and the backwater prose of Willy Vlautin, Daniel Woodrell or Richard Ford." It is, s/he wrote: " a genuinely moving story, written in North East dialect... one of the gems from my bookpile this year. Encompassing themes such as poverty, crime, racism, love, masculinity, nature and violence, it gives the reader a redemptive character that restores faith in humanity. A cinematic classic in the making."

I looked up Willy Vlautin too. He sounds wonderful.

The poetically named alabasterheart calls Alex Preston's The Revelations: "A blistering attack on the fishy religions that prey on the young and vulnerable, who don't care about the depth of your faith but the depth of your pockets. This is a beautifully written, very thoughtful book that avoids the kind of easy, obvious statements and instead makes you think long and hard about how and why our society is as shallow and frivolous as it is."

I'm sold already.

And finally, The Casablanca Case. Melanie Dent explains that: "reading a Simon Swift novel is like having mind-blowing awesome sex with the love of your life. From the slow seduction where Errol Black arrives in Casablanca to investigate the murder of his former friend, Hermeez Wentz; through to initial resistance from local law enforcement determined to perpetrate the myth that Wentz's death is the result of a robbery gone wrong. The tension and titillation builds as Black finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy with shady local crime bosses and seductive women; suddenly no longer sure who he can trust. Then the totally explosive climax where Errol finds out the truth about who is on whose side; friends who are not friends and people he should have run a mile from are actually trying to protect him."

Consider my mind boggled. I shrivel at the thought of trying to top that review. Fortunately, however, I have six weeks to plan it, all being well... all being well...

I'll see you in just over a week with some thoughts about Maxmilian Ponder.